Neon Coliseum

In Brief

Neon Сoliseum was developed by Mantis games and released on Steam through Displacement Studios on the 4th September 2017. Today's game is brought to you by Falcoware Games. It's a simple 2D action game with a neon style. Face off against colorful neon villains as you attempt to gain as high a score possible. Your weapons are lasers with a unique combat system.

Installation:

Neon Coliseum downloads to a 105 MB zip file that unzips to two files, (a setup executable and a read me). The game installs to the following path by default, but can be changed if you wish. The installed game is approximately 104 MB in size.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Neon Coliseum

Assuming you check the box for a desktop shortcut . five shortcuts will be installed to the desktop, four of which can be safely deleted (i.e. Falco Space - Online Game!, FalconLine Online Games Website, FalcoGo WebGL Games! and Free Games Downloads!). If you don't want to install the games shortcut to the desktop during installation, just make sure the install desktop shortcut is unchecked when the 'additional task's window appears; you will still get two of the other Falcoware shortcuts installed (i.e. FalconLine Online Games Website & FalcoGo WebGL Games shortcuts). Also, if you don't like icons installed to the quick launch task bar, make sure the appropriate checkbox is unchecked when the 'additional task's window appears (after the Select Start Menu Folder window).

Introduction:

Once in a very distant colored galaxy a special hero unlike any other was born. At a time when all the surrounding creatures were of one particular color, our protagonist was of all colors at once. Because of this individuality, he was subjected to the worst kind of abuse called colorism. For many years Willie The Wheel was chased by everyone, he had no work, no family, no friends. Life drove him to consider suicide. However at the very moment he was about to leave this world, he met a stranger that, like him was different from everyone else; however, unlike Willie, his new acquaintance didn’t have any color at all. He handed Willie an invitation to a place called Neon Coliseum where he could prove to all his strength and importance.

Take control of Willie! Use your colourful uniqueness to create color lasers to destroy your enemies, clearing up the spent ammunition as you progress. try to score as many points as possible.

The Game:

Willie is surrounded by enemies and must avoid touching them at all costs. If he is touch at all, the level counter (mentioned below) will reset to zero and a different level design will appear. Th e options menu allows you to adjust the sound effects and music, but there is no window mode available. There are three modes available via the play button, normal, zero gravity and training. The Normal mode consists of platforms that allows Willie to move around the board using the A and D keys to move left or right and to jump from one platform to the next to avoid various coloured enemies using the W key. You can control the height of the jump; a short jump is accomplished by a light touch of the W key. to attain a higher jump keep the W key depressed as though you were typing a letter. This may not be possible with non mechanical keyboards as the membrane keyboards are not as sensitive to touch. I use a mechanical keyboard called the Razer Black Widow Ultimate Stealth, which has a very sensitive keyboard. Just a light touch of a key will activate it. A higher jump is accomplished by keeping the W key depressed slightly longer. In the zero gravity mode, enemies are flying around in all directions.

If you wish to pause the game use P, if you want to reset/restart a level press R. In some levels you'll see gaps in the level boundary, these gaps enable Willie to teleport quickly from one side of the arena to the opposite side instantaneously. The zero gravity mode allows movement in all directions and has no platforms. enemies move more randomly in zero gravity. There's also a tutorial mode that will walk you through the various moves and other useful information you need to know.

To kill an enemy or multiple enemies at the same time you need to set the first colour laser point by clicking the space bar once to create the laser origin point; then move to where you wish the laser to finish and click the space bar again. This creates the end point and also fires the laser. The color of the laser will be dependent on whatever color you see in the center of Willies avatar. After a short while the laser will disappear and create a colour cartridge that flies off at speed. In the normal mode these come to rest and are easier to pick up. The zero gravity cartridge will bounce off all boundaries and continue to move until you manage to move your self into its path. You have to pick the cartridge up as quickly as possible before you can create another laser. The color of the cartridge will tell you what colour laser you can fire next.

The aim is to create a laser beam that traps and destroys as many enemies of the same color as possible. Any enemies that are a different color to your laser beam can pass through the beam with impunity, but enemies of the same colour will be destroyed instantly. As you destroy enemies you'll see an unobtrusive semi transparent counter in the background, that counts the number of kills you've made. This resets every time you die. When you create a laser beam, it starts to shrink from the second point to the origin. I found a useful tactic, especially in the zero gravity mode, was to locate the point of origin around the center of the arena, so that you could quickly create a beam either above or below. Initially enemies move from left to right and right to left, but in later levels, movement also includes up and down. The further you progress, the more enemies will be found in the arena. and therefore if you aren't careful, you'll end up having the game reset. Every so often, usually when something is accomplished a message will flash up in what I think is German.

There is a stats button in the main menu. This counts the total number of destroyed triangles and squares of all the different colors available, plus the total number of enemies killed, plus the number of streaks, triples, quadruples and rampages you've accomplish during game play. It also keeps a record of your high scores for both the normal (classic) and zero gravity modes. Finally the number of deaths you've suffered. This is a permanent record of your progress.

Whiterabbit-uk 21st February 2019

Conclusion:

This is an unusual action game, which has some merit for originality, and I really wanted to like it; however, for me there were some issues that took away the enjoyment and IMO the potential this game has. For example, there's no way to put the game into window mode, there's no profile, and therefor no high scoring table. instead you have a stats table that keeps a record of you progress. More importantly, you cannot remap the keys. I'm left handed and found it really difficult to control Willie with the WASD keys then to create the laser with the space bar; for me the arrow keys would have been perfect. I had my hands crossed over with my right hand on the movement keys and my left on the laser space bar. This game would be much improved if you were able to remap the key bindings. As it stands I found it too difficult due to the poor mapping of the keys for a left handed person..

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Video of Neon Coliseum game play:

You can see a video of game play HERE.

Suggestions:

After you've had an opportunity to play today's giveaway please take a few moments to give some positive or negative feedback; for example, what you liked or disliked about the game, or how it could be improved. If you don't like the genre at all, please explain why and if any, what improvements would change your mind? If you don't have time to post a comment today, please do so at your convenience, thank you. If you wish to post a review or comment about the game later, you can access the comments section by going to the game giveaways home page, then scroll to the bottom of the page where it says Archives and select the date the giveaway was live (giveaway days are in bold type). This will open the appropriate page for you to post your comment or review. Alternatively, you can google the name of the game and include Gamegiveawayoftheday in the search. This should give you a list of links to whenever this game was given away.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via Steam for £0.79/$0.99/€ 0.79 HERE.

Problems getting the game to work:

If you're having problems installing or activating or getting Neon Coliseum to work please visit the FAQ's Thread HERE and read through the communities comments because sometimes fixes have already been posted. If you don't initially find a fix, check back later in case a tech-savvy community member has posted a fix. We have some very knowledgeable members who are always happy to help.

Over the 12 years this game giveaway site has been operating, (8th December 2006) , there has 'never' been a game given away that was infected with any form of malware; so it's highly likely that if you get a malware warning it's going to be a false positive.

If for any reason you want to contact the giveaway team, for example, you have a game to offer the community, or are unable to download the latest game or other issues that the FAQ's thread or these comments don't cover or solve you can do so HERE

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mantis Games and the distributor Falcoware Games (on Steam the distributor is Displacement Studios) for giving away this free standing non-Steam version of Neon Coliseum and also to the game giveaway team, as always, for securing other ways to get free games.

Useful Information not related to today's game giveaway:

If Neon Coliseum doesn't interest you, but you still hanker for something new to play, you'll find details of some game deals whether they be sale items, indie bundles or games being given away for free HERE (I've not updated the thread in a while, but most of the links still take you to the latest deals).

The rest of the information that used to be posted in the game review can be found in the forums HERE. Finally, check out Delenns threads for details of other free games and offers HERE and elsewhere in the game discussion forums HERE, (usually on the first page of the game discussion forums). The free game over at epic games Axion Verge (worth £14.99/$19.99/€17.99) ends later today at 6pm UST, so this is the last chance to grab that game for free. You can also get the non Steam single player version of Welcome to Princeland for free temporarily via Indie Gala (you'll need a free account to claim the game) HERE; the SP/MP version is usually worth £3.99/$4.99/€3.99 and can be found on Steam HERE. I've posted some details, videos and images over in the forums. Finally, there are some excellent bargains on sale via Steam HERE (over 2200); for example if like me you love breakout games, one I've been playing recently called Ionball 2: Ionstorm is on sale until 25th February 6pm (UST) for only £041/$49/€0.39